Nothing Phone 2a looks like the best affordable phone ever for $350
Nothing Phone 2a looks like the best affordable phone ever for $350
A mindblowing price for an amazing looking and performing phone
🏷️ $350 price makes this one of the most affordable phones ever
📐 Nothing’s transparent and monochromatic design elevates this budget device
🏃♂️ 5,000mAh battery and MediaTek processor promise amazing efficiency
Nothing’s highly anticipated budget phone is finally here and it only costs $350!
The Nothing Phone 2a comes with possibly the most amazing budget price we’ve seen. That’s a far lower price than other value-packed handsets like the $499 Google Pixel 7a or $499 OnePlus 12R.
On top of that amazing price, the most striking thing about the Nothing Phone 2a is it doesn’t look or feel like a budget phone at all. It carries all the Nothing DNA of its siblings with an almost all-screen 6.7-inch display on the front and transparent back with lines inspired by Massimo Vignelli's NYC Subways maps. The light-up glyph is here as well — though it’s been scaled back and relegated to the camera.
What’s more exciting is this phone marks the return of the centralized camera, which makes it extremely distinct compared to the corner camera bump on most other smartphones.
There are only two things that betray the Phone 2a as a lower-end handset. Firstly, it has a slightly thicker screen bezel than we’ve seen on Nothing’s two other handsets. Secondly, the back of the phone is made of a flat sheet plastic instead of slightly curved Corning Gorilla Glass.
Internally, it’s also running on a MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro processor instead of the usual Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. Nothing promises this processor offers the best power efficiency and from our day of testing with the phone, it’s not lacking in performance either. The Nothing Phone 2a feels plenty snappy swapping between a dozen apps and it has no problem playing Genshin Impact either.
The Nothing Phone 2a carries a gorgeous-looking 6.7-inch screen that’s just as big as its Phone 2 sibling. It’s also a bright and fast display with 1,300 nits of peak brightness and an adaptive 120Hz refresh rate.
The Nothing Phone 2a also sports a massive 5,000mAh battery that’s as big as the one found in the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. It supports 45W wired fast charging too, so you can rapidly restore 50% of the battery in just 20 minutes.
As for cameras, the Phone 2a comes with two 50MP sensors behind the main wide-angle and ultrawide lenses. There’s no physical telephoto camera, but the camera app simulates a two-times zoom by cropping into one of the 50MP sensors.
I’m just getting started with testing and reviewing the Nothing Phone 2a, but I’m already impressed you can get a phone with such a great design and the specs of a flagship phone for $350. This phone exudes flagship killer and never settle energy, but I’ll have to see if there are any hidden limitations or hitches about this affordable phone.
The Nothing Phone 2a will be available to the United States through a limited Developer Program similar to how the original Nothing Phone 1 was distributed in the US. Essentially users can pay $350 to get “developer access” to a Nothing Phone 2a in either Black and Milk with 12GB of memory and 256GB of storage.
The developer program starts today March 5th and you can sign up for access to the phone here.
Kevin Lee is The Shortcut’s Creative Director. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam.